High School Basketball

High school basketball superstar Tyreke Evans drove a sport utility vehicle away from the scene after a passenger allegedly shot and killed a man last month, according to a Chester Township police affidavit that was released last week. Evans, who lives in the city of Chester, has not been charged with any crime. A senior at American Christian Academy in Aston, Delaware County, Evans is considered one of the nation's top high school players and is being heavily recruited by top-tier colleges, including Villanova, Memphis and Louisville.

ONE ON ONE Fiction. By Tabitha King. Dutton. $23. This is a novel about two championship seasons. Two high-school basketball teams strive for their respective state titles, and though one is a girls' team neither is treated frivolously. Which means we may be dealing with some sort of landmark here. Unless I'm mistaken, young Deanie Gauthier, the female protagonist, follows no literary footprints as she pursues athletic achievement with the intensity and commitment of, say, Galahad after the Grail.

High school basketball superstar Tyreke Evans drove a sport utility vehicle away from the scene after a passenger allegedly shot and killed a man last month, according to a Chester Township police affidavit that was released last week. Evans, who lives in the city of Chester, has not been charged with any crime. A senior at American Christian Academy in Aston, Delaware County, Evans is considered one of the nation's top high school players and is being heavily recruited by top-tier colleges, including Villanova, Memphis and Louisville.

In a verdict expected to open boys' high school basketball games across the state to officiating by women, a federal court jury ruled yesterday that PIAA bylaws had the illegal effect of keeping Noreen P. Kemether from refereeing boys' varsity and junior varsity games. The suit contended that Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association's bylaws gave local assigners too much autonomy in deciding who would officiate games, thus vesting an inordinate amount of power in "old-boy networks" that did not believe women should officiate boys' games.

Archbishop Carroll, the Catholic League South runner-up in basketball last season, lost all five of its starters to graduation. Franklin Learning Center, the Public League runner-up, lost four. It follows, then, that coaches Tom Inglesby of Carroll and Pete Merlino of FLC should be lamenting that regrettable necessity known as rebuilding. Far from it. By March, both teams could be champions, and a single word explains why: Transfers. High school athletes have always changed schools, but this season key basketball players with new jerseys are popping up everywhere, more than ever.

Brian Smith sincerely believes that basketball is a means for inner-city children to gain positive opportunities out in the world. And he would do just about anything he could to bring awareness to that ideal. How about dribbling a basketball 10 miles? Smith, 27, a basketball trainer and instructor from North Philadelphia, will participate in Sunday's Broad Street Run and plans to dribble a basketball for the entire 10-mile route, from Fisher Avenue to the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Charles Baltimore left St. Maria Goretti High School five years ago as a fired coach of the school's floundering girls' basketball team and an outspoken critic about moral, racial and social issues in high school basketball. In protest, Baltimore, who is black, filed a federal lawsuit and a human-relations complaint against the Catholic League, contending racial discrimination. The principal at the time, Theresa McGhee, was transferred to another Catholic school. Baltimore eventually dropped litigation to go on with his life, accept a coaching job at Friends Select and later at Abington Friends, where he has coached the girls' team for three seasons.

Delaware County has arguably the best high school basketball team in Pennsylvania in Chester. But there is no denying Delaware County has the best high school basketball player in the state - and possibly the country - in American Christian's Tyreke Evans. The slender, 6-6 shooting guard is being sought by Villanova, Memphis, Louisville, Connecticut and Texas, and has begun this season with a torrid start, averaging 35 points a game for the Eagles. AMERICAN CHRISTIAN, with Evans leading the way, has been ranked by a number of national news outlets as a top team in the country.

To understand Dajuan Wagner's magnificence and the spectacle packaged with it, look not at his awe-deserving slashes to the basket or that can't-be-in-high-school physique. Look instead at that slender player from Philadelphia in the background, the one who is just now catching the eye of college coaches. His name is Hakim Warrick. He is 6-foot-8 and listed at 205 pounds, but he may be a few Snickers bars lighter than that, and his nickname fits his frame - "Skinny. " His name was not in the handbook of the 2000 Nike All-American camp, where he, Wagner and about 180 more of the nation's top high school basketball players went last week to either impress college coaches or validate their talent.

Philadelphia Christian Academy, the Pentecostal prep school that attracted attention for giving some of the city's rising high school basketball players a second chance at better grades and college recruitment, has named David Anwar as its new basketball coach. Anwar, a Mount Airy resident and 1992 graduate of Abington Friends School, said he resigned last month as assistant basketball coach at Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass., to take the PCA job vacated by Paul Rieser. "I just want to do what I can to get players ready academically and athletically to play at the college level," said Anwar, 25, who at Notre Dame Prep helped fifth-year high school players go on to college.

Brian Smith sincerely believes that basketball is a means for inner-city children to gain positive opportunities out in the world. And he would do just about anything he could to bring awareness to that ideal. How about dribbling a basketball 10 miles? Smith, 27, a basketball trainer and instructor from North Philadelphia, will participate in Sunday's Broad Street Run and plans to dribble a basketball for the entire 10-mile route, from Fisher Avenue to the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

NEW YORK - Jack Curran spent more than five decades compiling one of the best records in high school basketball and baseball. When former players, opponents, and those close to high school sports spoke of him upon learning of his death Thursday at 82, wins and titles didn't matter. They all spoke of the coach who spent the last half-century helping players - and not just those at New York's Archbishop Molloy, his school - get scholarships to college. "He was one of the true saints in scholastic sports," said Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach Lou Carnesecca, whom Mr. Curran succeeded at Molloy.

Spotlight on: Gloucester Catholic freshman Maggie McIntyre Mikila Stefanski had sunk her previous two half-court shots. And watching her step up for a third try, Maggie McIntyre said, was about the most nerve-racking part of the South Jersey Invitational Basketball Tournament's three-point contest. "I could hardly watch," said McIntyre, a Gloucester Catholic freshman. After making the improbable shot in the quarterfinals and semifinals, Stefanski, a Cedar Creek junior, rimmed out what would have been the winner in the contest's championship pairing.

JUST ABOUT everything everybody thinks they know about college basketball players is wrong. There is this perception, especially from a school's fans, that the players are robots, totally dedicated to basketball and schoolwork. Once that scholarship is accepted, it is somehow assumed that human emotion is laid aside for 4 years while pursuing victories and tournament berths. They see a player in uniform on a court. They don't see the person behind the uniform away from the court.

AMIR DAVIS figured the most amazing game of his final high school basketball season already owned a spot in the rearview mirror. Then came Thursday. And a wonderful, hard-fought, draining contest that appeared destined to last into Friday. For 44 minutes of game time and 2 hours, 19 minutes of real time, host Palmer Charter battled Palumbo in Public League Division D. And the former fiiiiinally won, 99-96. After Jalen Wilder's right-wing trey fell short and the buzzer sounded, Davis exchanged a lengthy hug with a good buddy and fellow hero, Malachi Thompson.

IT WAS a love fest from start to finish. Many former Monsignor Bonner High School basketball players, students and friends turned out Dec. 16 to pay homage to longtime Bonner basketball coach, Richard A. "Dick" Bernhart, on the occasion of his 75th birthday. The party was held in McGillicuddy's restaurant, in Upper Darby, and Dick was driven there from his home in Frostburg, Md., by a young friend, Taylor Betts. Three days later, Dick Bernhart was dead. He died in his home in Frostburg of natural causes, no doubt with the many accolades he heard at the party still ringing in his ears.

VILLANOVA GUARD Tony Chennault has been granted a hardship waiver by the NCAA and will be eligible to play for Villanova this season. Chennault decided to transfer from Wake Forest this spring so he could be near his family in Philadelphia. He will have 2 years of eligibility. "The Chennault family has been dealing with so much this year," Wildcats coach Jay Wright said in a statement. "Tony's mom has faced health issues and his brother, Mike Jay, died tragically earlier this month.

CHICAGO - Amile Jefferson and Kahleah Copper took turns on Wednesday night playing in the house that Michael Jordan built. The Philadelphia-area stars appeared in respective boys' and girls' McDonald's All-American basketball games before more than 17,000 fans at the United Center. Jefferson, a 6-foot-8 forward from Friends' Central, played about six minutes, had a pair of steals and hit a late jumper in the first half for an East team battling an 11-player West squad in a late game.

CHICAGO - Doug Collins has seen, and knows, all about the profession of being a basketball coach. He is now with his fourth, and he says last, team. His days as the head man on the bench will come to a close in the not too distant future. But as the 76ers coach's career on the bench winds down, his son, Chris, seems about ready to embark on a head coaching position. Since 2000, Chris has been an assistant to Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. Now rumors are swirling, particularly in this area, that the younger Collins might be ready to take over his own program.